


Miracle Heist

by Peppermint_Shamrock



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Badass Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Gen, Humor, Minor Spoilers, Post partial reveal, Theft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-13 22:08:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21004925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peppermint_Shamrock/pseuds/Peppermint_Shamrock
Summary: Gabriel has gotten much of what he wants. Not the Ladybug and Cat Miraculouses, not yet, but he has the Miracle Box now. On top of that, he's learned Ladybug's identity.Unfortunately for him, his victory won't last very long.





	Miracle Heist

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't part of my Hallowshots series; it was just a spur of the moment fic that was inspired by the spoilers for the upcoming finale. If you don't want that spoiled, I suggest you click back before reading further.
> 
> So, in the spoilers, Papillon has the Miracle Box. I doubt he'll actually get it for long; I'm sure Ladybug will get it back by the end of the finale at least. But I got this silly fic idea from it nonetheless, where Marinette and Gabriel just keep stealing the Miraculouses back from each other in increasingly ridiculous schemes.
> 
> Please enjoy before the episode comes out tomorrow and dashes any chance of this ever happening :D

The worst thing about Nathalie recovering in the hospital, Gabriel concluded, was that he had to hire temporary help. And the worst thing about temporary help was that they were so often incompetent.

“I’m sorry, sir! It won’t happen again, I promise!” the temporary assistant said, cowering under his displeasure.

And things had been going so well, too. He had obtained the Miracle Box. He had disposed of the Guardian. He had even, while not able to acquire her earrings _yet_, discovered Ladybug’s identity. Chat Noir was still an unknown, but it was only a matter of time before Gabriel had the earrings and then there would be little the cat could do against him. Gabriel was closer than ever to finally realizing his wish and making everything as it should be.

The one problem, then, was that Ladybug had also figured _him_ out.

“She said she was a friend of Adrien’s helping to study with him, and I checked with Adrien and he confirmed her story, so I didn’t realize…”

“Adrien is _not_ to have visitors over without my _explicit _permission,” Gabriel interrupted harshly. “I thought I made that clear.”

“You…you didn’t…”

“And your incompetence has led to the _robbery_ of my home!” he shouted, ignoring her feeble excuses.

Of course that infuriating bug just had to be one of those bad influences his son had picked up. And to think, before he’d known that Mlle Dupain-Cheng was Ladybug, he’d actually thought she was one of the better ones. How wrong he had been. Because not only had Ladybug befriended his son, she’d taken advantage of that connection to gain access to his home, locate the hidden Miracle Box, and simply stash it in her backpack and go right back to studying with Adrien until she just walked out of the house with her stolen goods an hour later.

That devious, conniving, manipulative, _infuriating_ insect!

“I…I can file a police report if you want…”

He resisted the urge to shriek at her. Of course he didn’t want to file a police report! These were powerful magical artifacts, not that this trembling excuse for an assistant knew that, and not at all something he wanted to draw attention to, especially not when the entire city would eat up anything Ladybug said – including a public accusation of his being Papillon.

“You have done enough damage. I will handle this issue. _You _are to leave the premises immediately, and not to return.”

The now-ex assistant was only too happy to comply, all but fleeing the instant the words had left his mouth, and Gabriel repressed a sigh. Now, on _top_ of the Ladybug issue, he had to find another temporary assistant, one who was actually _competent._

_And_ he needed to give Adrien another stern lecture about uninvited visitors, without revealing that the girl had stolen anything. Adrien probably wouldn’t even believe him, having such a naive trust in his friends – the boy apparently hadn’t even thought _anything_ suspicious of Mlle Dupain-Cheng running off unsupervised in the house to “find a bathroom” despite there being one _attached to Adrien’s room_. And with Gabriel unwilling to explain what exactly had been stolen, he knew there would be no way to get through to the stubborn boy.

No…best to leave Adrien out of this…or, perhaps, use him to keep Ladybug out of the way while Gabriel retrieved the Miraculouses. Yes, that could work. Adrien was constantly pushing to see his friends more often, and an outing with them was the perfect way to ensure that Ladybug was not at home during a particular time. From there it would be a simple matter to retrieve the Miraculouses.

Or so he assumed, only to find it significantly more difficult than he had expected.

He’d quietly akumatized someone, and directed them to search the bakery. The plan was simple – find the Miraculouses and have his current minion deposit them in a convenient place, before engaging in the usual rampage across Paris. The only difficulty he had anticipated was that the girl had found some other hiding place for the Miracle Box.

He had _not_ anticipated a trap.

The box itself had been easy enough for his Akuma to find – set inside another box tucked carefully in an inconspicuous corner. That other box, however, snapped shut over the Akuma’s outstretched hand, resulting in a howl of shock and rage. This, of course, attracted the attention of the bakers below, who came rushing up and had no hesitation in attacking his latest supervillain. Really, did all these fools just take Ladybug’s cure for granted? Had no one any regard for their own safety? There was a _reason_ he sent out a proxy to take care of these things while he sat safely in his observatory.

Regardless, their attacks were effective, especially with the Akuma no longer listening to him, distracted and rage-blinded as they were by the unexpected attachment to their limb. Furious, they escaped the little bakery, and it was some time before Gabriel was able to calm the Akuma down enough (he wasn’t supposed to be _calming _them, usually, but this warranted an exception) to meet with them (away from the mansion, of course) and break the outer box with his sword and take the Miracle Box back for himself.

Unsurprisingly, his Akuma did not do well against Ladybug and Chat Noir that day, but since he had retrieved the Miracle Box, he was satisfied enough for the moment. He was quick to set up a trap of his own, bolting the Miracle Box into place and carefully arranging a series of missiles to protect it. Even if Ladybug _did_ connive her way back in, she’d have a difficult time getting back out.

Once again, he was proven wrong.

The girl had come transformed this time, because of course every entrance to the house was secured – except Adrien’s windows. Gabriel was going to have to put an automatic timer on those if Adrien was going to be so careless as to leave his windows open when he came down for dinner. Ladybug had easily found the Miracle Box, and used her yo-yo to keep her off the pressure pads that would’ve set off the missiles and alerted him to her presence. She hadn’t bothered to disable the camera, however, and had the audacity to _wink_ at it as she began stuffing the Miraculouses one by one into her yo-yo. She left the same way she came, leaving Gabriel to discover this through his security footage.

He fumed, and plotted.

.

.

His next Akuma _was_ able to retrieve those extra Miraculouses from Ladybug’s room, but not without incident, as the girl was no longer content with keeping them contained in a snap-lock box, but rather an entire chest of drawers with the same security mechanism. It was fortunate that he’d chosen an Akuma with some more…explosive tendencies, but of course Ladybug’s powers would just restore that damn trapped chest of drawers instead of setting her back to scratch. On the other hand, her powers also restored the damage to the Miraculouses that he had taken back.

.

.

He was going to fire the entire kitchen staff. How had she managed to disguise herself as one of them, and how had _none _of them noticed her smuggling out the Miraculouses in a used egg carton?

.

.

There were traps on her _floor_ now. This was why he didn’t do this himself.

.

.

He was going to have _words_ with whoever let a fourteen-year-old have power tools. Especially one that had such a proclivity towards towards highly unconventional repurposing of anything she could get her hands on. He was never one to use such tools himself, but he was _very _ certain that was _not_ how they were meant to be used.

.

.

Was there _anything_ in her room that wasn’t set up with one kind of trap or another? How did she not accidentally set these off all the time? Did she even actually stay in this room?

Ugh, next time he was going to reakumatize Penny Rolling.

And he hated that he now just took it for granted that there was going to be a next time.

.

.

Her craftsmanship was impeccable, and he’d’ve been impressed by it if he wasn’t so infuriated. It was only on the third inspection that he could even tell that the vault door had been replaced.

.

.

“Papillon Hates Pastries,” read the headlines, but he ignored them, because if he had to destroy the entire building to get back the Miraculouses, he would.

.

.

It _should not be possible _ to disable his entire security system with fishing wire, half a checkers board, and a bird whistle. And of course the only thing she had left working were the cameras, that smug, _insufferable_ little beetle.

.

.

There wasn’t much defense Ladybug could have against an intangible infiltrator, but he didn’t get any satisfaction out of getting the Miraculouses back when he knew she’d inevitably break back in and get them back. He decided to move the Miracle Box down where Emelie was, maybe that would slow Ladybug down a little, if not get her to consider his motives in all this.

.

.

She _stole _ his _butterflies_.

.

.

People started to notice how often his supervillains were targeting the Dupain-Cheng bakery. Which wouldn’t have been much of a problem, except that a large group of the girl’s friends, associates, schoolmates, random people she had helped in the street, and a handful of celebrities had taken it upon themselves to set up a 24/7 rotating guard around the bakery to defend it from his Akumas. Which he was sure had to be frustrating for Ladybug, but was even more frustrating for him.

He circumvented the issue with another invisible Akuma, but then he had to deal with the traps again. He had set up security systems before – lots of them, lately – and he was pretty sure it should be impossible to put all of the measures she had taken in one room, certainly not without getting caught up in it herself.

Still, he got the Miraculouses back, and he supposed that was something, regardless of how temporary it was.

.

.

Gabriel scowled at the security footage. He wasn’t sure how she’d gotten in this time, though he’d gathered that it had at least involved a skateboard and canned peas. But that wasn’t the part that had him frowning this time.

No, what bothered him was that this time, Mlle Dupain-Cheng had been caught in the act. Which might not have been a troubling thing, if it had been anyone except Adrien.

He’d wished now that he’d opted for security cameras with sound recording. He hadn’t thought they would be necessary, and he was already spending so much just trying to keep her out, so he had no way of knowing what words had been exchanged between the pair.

He could tell from their expressions that they had started arguing, but of course Adrien had given his friend the benefit of the doubt rather than immediately calling for her to be thrown out. The girl had flailed some, likely trying to come up with some excuse for her actions, before finally showing Adrien the Miraculouses. And, judging from _his_ expression, and knowing that he had seen the book before (of course, Ladybug had stolen _that_ a couple weeks ago, too), he recognized them for what they were. Gabriel couldn’t be sure, but it was highly likely that the girl told Adrien then about Gabriel’s identity as Papillon, if not her own identity, because Adrien then left, returned with a duffel bag packed full, and walked out with her and the Miraculouses.

It was well past dusk now, and Adrien hadn’t returned home. Nor was he answering any calls, or making his location known at all.

Gabriel was certain Adrien would understand, if only he had the chance to explain himself. But as long as Ladybug was hiding Adrien away, she could continue twisting his mind against his family and own well-being. He needed to do something, he needed to get the Ladybug and Cat Miraculouses as soon as possible. He had gotten distracted by getting caught up in their little back-and-forth challenge, forgetting that those weren’t actually the important Miraculouses, and now…

And now the floor was crumbling under his feet. Quite literally.

He jumped up, and called Nooroo to transform him as the walls started to collapse and he narrowly avoided a piece of falling ceiling that hadn’t quite disintegrated yet. With his now magically-enhanced reflexes, he dodged and leapt out of the way of the debris until the mansion was nothing but dust.

He turned, not surprised to see Ladybug and Chat Noir silhouetted against the street lamps.

“I’ll admit, that was a lot faster than my idea,” Ladybug said nonchalantly.

“You got to have all the fun before,” Chat Noir said. “It was my turn.”

“Fair enough,” she said.

And this…this was not a situation he wanted to be in. He was already tired from the day, and dodging a collapsing building did not help matters. He had no butterflies to turn into Akumas, no home base, no extra Miraculouses, and he was face-to-face with Ladybug and Chat Noir, who knew who he was and could pursue him no matter where he went.

He tensed, readying himself into fighting position, prepared to fight with all he had in a last ditch effort. He couldn’t fail here, he needed the Miraculouses, he had to undo the past…

“Give it up, Papillon,” Chat Noir said. “It’s over; you’ve lost.”

“The police will be here soon,” Ladybug said, holding out her hand in a clear gesture to receive his Miraculous. “If you cooperate, I’m sure you’ll get a lesser sentence.”

He growled and charged at the two heroes.

But they had been ready for him, and it was a short dance before he was tangled in Ladybug’s yo-yo, pinned back by Chat Noir. And in the distance, he could hear sirens, and had to accept the reality of the situation:

He had lost the moment Ladybug had first waltzed out of his house with the Miracle Box.

**Author's Note:**

> Check out my [Dreamwidth](https://peppermint-shamrock.dreamwidth.org/) for daily WIP excerpts and sneak peaks, or follow my [Miraculous Tumblr blog](https://ladyofcreation.tumblr.com/)!


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